Finding the perfect place to upload video is not as easy as it seems. With it's huge global audience youtube may look like the ideal video sharing site, especially now that they allow the upload of HD video content, but there are still reasons to look for some youtube alternatives. The first reason is that user submitted videos are limited to 10 minutes in duration. This can cause a problem if you have long format video content to upload. The second is that although you can create a channel, promoting and embedding your video channel as a whole is not that easy. The final and most important reason is that pushes online video producer to seek youtube alternatives is that on youtube good content often gets lost amongst the viral and personal videos uploads. There is nothing worse than seeing the video you took hours to edit just being pushed off the recently added page by a "funny" video of a peeing poodle.

Up until youtube launched it's new player with HD support, Veoh was considered as the site with the best player technology amongst youtube alternatives. The site also offers decent tool to create your own video channel. Veoh doesn't really have the same audience as youtube however, as it had more of a reputation as an anime heaven at some point. The site accept most video formats beside flash itself and videos can be up to 1Gb is size, which should be more than enough for anybody. This is probably the best alternative for those who just want to upload video and get a decent player to embed.

Often considered as the "youtube of Europe", this is the best amongst youtube alternatives for those who just want "youtube without the 10 minutes limitation". The way the site work and the audience are similar to youtube, but uploaded videos can be up to 20 minutes in length and 150 Mb in size. If you produce original content you can also register as a "Motionmaker" to be allowed to upload video of HD quality. This also removes the 20 minute limitation on video uploads. My main problem with Dailymotion is that their anti piracy team has a strong tendency to ban original content without reason. This happened to me personally when one of my videos with an original soundtrack was banned for soundtrack copyright infringement! This makes the site somewhat unreliable for online video producer that strive to make quality, professional looking ( or sounding ) content. Because of this Dailymotion miss the first place as youtube alternative in my list.

Blip.tv is my favorite amongst youtube alternatives for "podcast like" video and video serials. The site has great tools for video channel creation and embedding. The channel player allow your videos to be presented as a continuous series of shows, which is a far cry from youtube, and your viewer can subscribe to your videos through rss. Quality wise the player only displays videos in SD, but the encoding quality is good with few artifacts. You can still upload HD video however, and your viewers will be given the option to download the original HD video file if they want. This is a very nice feature that is sadly missing from youtube and most other youtube alternatives. Another great thing for online video producers is that Blip.tv allows you to put ads on you videos and be paid about half of the revenue that these ads generate. You can upload video to blip.tv in most formats, and files can be up to 1 GB in size. The only black marks on this site's record is that they are less well suited to single videos, and that they have a smaller audience that sites like Dailymotion, Yahoo or Veoh.4. Yahoo Videos

I must say that I am not a big fan of yahoo videos. The audience they pull makes it a decent youtube alternative but I personally find the site a bit messy. From a technical standpoint they offer nothing special, you can upload video files up to 150 Mb, and the flash player supports SD. There is no revenue sharing scheme or special tools for channel promotion. They do bring to the table the yahoo brand however, and that still has some pull on a lot of internet users. Beside the brand factor there are better youtube alternatives out there.

Myspace is better known as a social site than a video upload site, but the traffic they get and the social features of the site make it a viable contender amongst youtube alternatives. The main problem is that the site is a bit of a media mess currently, something the owners have vowed to fix. Another problem is that the community on Myspace can sometime be very critical, so be prepared to receive some flames. From a technical standpoint videos are rendered in SD, but video uploads of up to 500 Mb are accepted.

The particularity of Metacafe is the the video uploads are reviewed and rated by the community, which seems better than on Myspace (bye bye peeing poodle). This is good if you have a lot of followers (well, more than the poodle at least) as your video can rank high on the site. They used to have a revenue sharing program, but it is now stopped. From a technical perspective they rank lower than other sites: the player is SD and videos can only be up to 100 Mb in size, which is small by today's standard. I would only advise to use this site as a youtube alternative for the community features, otherwise go see somewhere else.

Openfilm is probably the most recent site amongst youtube alternatives. They clearly target the aspiring filmmaker with a revenue sharing option, decent channel tools and a good quality, high resolution player. It is a bit early to judge the service as it is still in beta, but the site looks very promising! The audience is mainly interested in good quality video from independent and amateur producers, so you may get a good audience if you deliver that kind of content. The only problem with the site is that it is still relatively unknown from most of the public, so it doesn't pull the same number of viewers as the other sites.

As you can see there are a lot of youtube alternatives out there.choosing the right host for your video uploads will depen on what your requirement are: Do you upload long or short form content? Do you want to create a channel? Do you want community features? Do you want to make money from your video? No matter what you want there is probably a video host out there that has it!image cc by dannysullivan